relocoast
Aerial view of Badalona with port detail. Province Barcelona Spain
Costa Barcelona · Barcelonès, Barcelona

Badalona

5Winter liveability / 5To the sea 500 mTo the airport 30 min · BCNPer m² 2 769 €

Badalona is Catalonia's third most populated city, with around two hundred and twenty thousand people. It sits directly against Barcelona to the north, joined to it by the metro. Under the Romans this was Baetulo, and excavations from that era stand in the centre beneath a museum.

For anyone moving, Badalona is Barcelona at half the price: twenty minutes to the centre by metro, a beach inside the city, hospitals and schools on the spot. It is a working city with an industrial past and almost no tourism. Housing costs noticeably less than Barcelona's for the same city options. The drawback is density and building: this is not a resort or a quiet place but an ordinary large suburb.

Worth a trip nearby
  • Barcelona · 10 km — the country's second city, direct by metro
  • Mataró · 20 km — the Maresme district capital and the train
  • Montserrat · 55 km — the monastery and the serrated mountain
Resalesource
2 769€/m²
+9% price growth yoy
appraised value, Ministerio de Vivienda
New build
3 577€/m²
Rent, 2 bed
1150€/mo
Populationsource
230 642
Foreign residents 18.4%
Winter humidity
69%
Sunshine hours per year
2 500h
Rent, 1 bed
850€/mo
International schools
1
Internet
520Mbps

Badalona sits in Barcelonès, Barcelona, right on the water. The square metre is 40% below the Costa Barcelona median: €2 769 against €4 595. You can live here without a car: our rating is 5 out of 5, rare on the Spanish coast, and the town has its own train station. A proper city of 230,642: hospitals, schools and work are all here.

Hospital, terrain, getting around

Nearest hospitalsource
2min by car
Hospital Municipal de Badalona
Badalona · 0.7 km · public
Terrainsource
rolling
Centre at 7 m, 42 m of elevation change
25–80 m of change — the climb from the sea to the centre is noticeable on foot
Car-freeour rating
5/5
easy without a car
Stations: Badalona, Montgat · tram: 6 · bus stops within 1.5 km: 155

Where from: the Ministry of Health hospital catalogue, road time · elevations from the Copernicus terrain model · OpenStreetMap · ratings for car-free and hospital minutes are ours.

Badalona sea temperature by month

5 months above 20 °Csource
14
J
13
F
14
M
15
A
18
M
22
J
25
J
26
A
25
S
22
O
18
N
16
D

Average sea surface temperature, °C, for 2015–2024 — NOAA OISST satellite series, grid cell 13.5 km from the centre.

Tourist load

1
J
1
F
1
M
2
A
2
M
3
J
4
J
4
A
3
S
2
O
1
N
1
D

Badalona beaches and water quality

source

Badalona has 4 beaches tested under EU bathing water rules, at 4 sampling points. In the 2025 season, all 4 were graded excellent. No beach here has been graded “poor” since testing began in 1990.

The grade is bacteria in water samples over the last four seasons — not sand, views or crowds. “Poor” means bathing there is advised against.

BeachFrom the centreGrade 2025“Excellent” in a rowLast “poor”
Playa dels Pescadors0.5 kmexcellent5 seasonsnone since 2012
Playa de Cristall1.1 kmexcellent14 seasonsnone since 2012
Playa de Coco1.3 kmexcellent4 seasonsnone since 2012
Playa de la Marina2.1 kmexcellent4 seasonsnone since 2022

No longer tested: Playa de Badalona (last season 2011), Playa de la Mora (last season 2016).

Where from: European Environment Agency, bathing water register, seasons 1990–2025, licence CC BY 4.0. Distance is from the centre in a straight line. Every place in one table

On the map

What tenants actually pay

sourced
Median
728€/mo
75th percentile
867€/mo
Flat size
72m²

This is the median rent on active leases — tax records for 2024, a sample of 11 538 leases. It includes long-standing contracts at unchanged rents, so it sits below what is asked today: our estimate of asking rent is 1 150 € for a two-bedroom.

The point of the 75th percentile: it is closer to what is being signed now than the median. The gap between them shows how much a new tenant overpays relative to long-standing ones.

Where from: SERPAVI, Ministerio de Vivienda · municipality: Badalona

Rent by number of bedrooms

asking price, estimate
1 bedroom850 €/mo
2 bedrooms1 150 €/mo
3 bedrooms≈ 1 500 €/mo
Median of active leases, 2024728 €/mo

Asking prices are what long lets are advertised at today; the registry is what tenants pay on signed leases, including old ones. The gap between them is your negotiating argument.

Schools nearby

estimate

International schools counted in the base: 1. Names and curricula for this place are not verified yet — the school registry covers the thirty most-requested places so far.

3

Renting without a Spanish contract

How realistic a long lease is without a nómina — on foreign income, savings or prepayment.

  • —A community with its own services: agencies have dealt with foreigners before
  • —Prices rising 9% a year — the landlord picks, and the first filter is a nómina

This is our model, not a measurement: demanding a nómina is an individual landlord's practice and nobody publishes it. The rating is derived from the share of foreign residents, the presence of a community with services, price growth, seasonality of the stock and the size of the town.

Who lives here

INE 2025
Foreign residents on the padrón
18.4%
42,505 of 230,642
  • Pakistan7 881
  • Morocco4 731
  • China4 723
  • Colombia2 698
  • Honduras2 609
  • India1 545
  • Italy1 517
  • Peru1 485
Communities and services in their language
  • zhChinese~4 000school, doctors or lawyers in the language
  • arArabic~6 000

Where from: INE, Censo Anual de Población · the register-based census counts padrón registrations by citizenship on 1 January, not everyone living here: seasonal owners and the unregistered are outside it, and naturalised residents count as Spanish.

Winter direct flights from BCN

January 2026/2730 min to the airport
  • other countries76
  • Italy16
  • United Kingdom14
  • France11
  • Germany9
  • Poland6
  • Netherlands3
  • Switzerland3
  • Portugal3
  • Ireland2
  • Belgium2
  • Denmark2
  • Austria2
  • Sweden1
  • Norway1
  • Finland1
  • Czechia1

Destinations served at least weekly in January; checked 2026-09-17.

Paperwork and practicalities

Appointment for the TIE· Barcelonafrom reports
1
The worst province in the country alongside Madrid. In June 2026 the Barcelona bar association described people spending three months looking for a fingerprint appointment. The newspaper El País reported slots being bought for 50 to 200 euros. The police themselves admitted they were short-staffed. Automatic booking has run since January 2026 in L'Hospitalet only. Free slots vanish within minutes, and people on forums look for fixers and bots.
1 — no slots for weeks, 5 — freely available. Checked 2026-09-17
Coworking within 3 km
not on the map
Dog beaches within 8 km
not on the map
Vets within 5 km
11

From OpenStreetMap — an open map filled in by volunteers. Something missing there may still exist: read this as «we found this many», not «there are no more».

Where to look next

Nearby on the same coast
Cheaper with the same sea
Similar price, other coasts
Compare with A Coruña
Verified: 2026-09-14 · where the data comes from